My morning started from a late night, a night to which I stayed up watching some off-beat cable television show. By morning, my meditation was exhaustive. And after a day of travel, I felt extremely faded and cut my meditation short, crawling back into bed for another seventy-five minutes of rest.
By 7:50 AM, I had arisen and headed to the hotel lobby for coffee. ‘God Dang-it,” I muttered. “No ‘regular’ coffee. God, you think the hotel staff could actually monitor this?” I grabbed a styrofoam cup and splashed in three-quarters of decaffeinated coffee begrudgingly grabbed a USA Today, threw my laptop onto the chair beside me and thumbed through the national headlines.
And then ‘he’ arrived. An older gentleman, looking late fifties, in ‘vacation shorts.‘ You know, the kind of shorts older people wear on vacation, looking as though he stole an old polyester suit, stripping what’s left and converting the scraps into attire found only on circus clowns and … stupid old men.
This vacationer packed a huge Samsonite Carry-on Upright Spinner Luggage with a Samsonite Backpack as a sidekick. He delicately placed the backpack at the table next me and spun that dang roller while pacing backward and forward. Without missing rhythm, two steps forward, two steps back. Forward. Backward. All the time looking out toward the front lobby.
I was a mere moment away from yelling, “put that damn down and drink less coffee.”
And then … another gentleman came forward and he turned around. My heart sank. The traveler I was so willing rip up was mentally handicap. He lived with his older brother and wife. I could easily tell the younger brother was cared for and loved. He was excited to be on vacation, traveling places and seeing things.
As the family shared breakfast, the brother pulled out his map. “Brain? Where do you want to go today?” And Brain plotted the trip, east to Ocean City, north to Fenwick Island and take the Cape Mary – Lewes fairy across Delaware Bay. There was no agenda, no time squeeze; no place they actually had to go. Brain was excited by sharing moments with his family.
Today I wasn’t a Buddhist. Today, I was just another a**hole most of us meet during our travels from ‘here’ to ‘there.’ You probably shared joy, peace, love, romance and heart. Today, I contributed nothing but my old former sarcastic self. And while no one saw my heart, I knew … deep down … I was not in the moment.
This left me thinking, while I may not vote for Ms. Palin, I honor her love for Trig. And strangely, I honor the love ‘Brain’ had for his brother and hope all us can feel and express that level of deep commitment.
It’s clear to state, if you’re angry at any one time, then all the love we learned is simply theory. A spiritual life cannot simply be a theory … it must be lived.